Definitely think this is a good idea. Its also a good case to have a lot of fans that constantly say 'I want this..' to put their money where their mouth is. If we're all keen on something why not try and move towards a result. I doubt that a lot of the good folk that have started up soundtrack labels came in as millionaires. Spreading the cost might help. The only trouble might be that the soundtrack community isn't exactly the biggest in the world. The numbers of willing investors might not stack up to the numbers that invest in say a movie project.

I would not fund a kickstarter project. It sounds good on paper, but there are too many unknowns for both the person doing it and the people backing it. If a project failed to appear after being funded or if appeared but different from what promised you will see immediate backlash. We've already seen this happen on big kickstarter projects that were funded and by so called reputable people.

If you thought soundtrack fans were already entitled, which we already know many of the producers of the labels think, just wait how they will be when they are paying your startup costs on projects.

I do think Kickstarter has a place and I believe that to be for the people who really have smaller projects and no other access or avenue to fund their projects. When you see bigger guys asking people for money, examples like Spike Jonze and Zach Braff you know it is being taken advantage of.

I base my buying habits on what exists, not what might exist in 2 years time. I'm happy to register a genuine interest in something and then follow through with my cash (e.g. LLL's Star Trek box) but I'm not paying for it WAY in advance. Too many other committments.

I'm sure it's tough on the labels, but that's the nature of their business.

The big trick here is that if you're going to do a kickstarter to get the license of a product, it's got to be a guaranteed acquisition.

As I mentioned earlier, Pinball Arcade said that their projected goal was for the license of a particular product and anything made over that goal would be used to help license other tables. Once they hit their goal, the table was guaranteed.

RiffTrax on the other hand did a Kickstarter to try and license the first "Twilight" movie for one of their theatrical live riffs. Problem was that RiffTrax themselves didn't even negotiate with the studios who owned Twilight to figure out how much it would cost so they just started a kickstarter with what they thought it would cost and go with that. Even though it greatly surpassed the expected amount, they still didn't get Twilight. Instead they got "Starship Troopers" and had to drop a lot of their rewards since they couldn't even license the rights to allow their backers to download the live riff.

So if there's going to be a kickstarter to get a specific project going, it's got to be a project where it's target goal is all that is needed for that project to actually happen. No "We'll raise as much as we can and try to license it afterwards" or "If we don't get it, we'll try something else". I don't think anyone would feel good about backing a "JAWS Remastered!" soundtrack only to find out that the projected goal was not enough which results in the backers getting the soundtrack to the "Jaws Unleashed" video game instead.

I would not fund a kickstarter project. It sounds good on paper, but there are too many unknowns for both the person doing it and the people backing it. If a project failed to appear after being funded or if appeared but different from what promised you will see immediate backlash. We've already seen this happen on big kickstarter projects that were funded and by so called reputable people.

If you thought soundtrack fans were already entitled, which we already know many of the producers of the labels think, just wait how they will be when they are paying your startup costs on projects.

I do think Kickstarter has a place and I believe that to be for the people who really have smaller projects and no other access or avenue to fund their projects. When you see bigger guys asking people for money, examples like Spike Jonze and Zach Braff you know it is being taken advantage of.

It was Spike Lee, and while I'm not 100% on board with him and Zach Braff using Kickstarter the way they did, if there's no interest from studios, I'm OK with filmmakers we've heard of trying to raise money for their art or whatever.

No, its not my responsibility to fund some private businesses endeavors. The risk and rewards should be on the business not the consumer. That's free Enterprise everyone loves to talk about. It comes with risks and there are no guarantees. It's almost blackmail. Help fund my personal product/business ventures or you will never get it. I think Kickstarter is an appalling new trend in corporate/ consumer relations.

I would not fund a kickstarter project. It sounds good on paper, but there are too many unknowns for both the person doing it and the people backing it. If a project failed to appear after being funded or if appeared but different from what promised you will see immediate backlash. We've already seen this happen on big kickstarter projects that were funded and by so called reputable people.

If you thought soundtrack fans were already entitled, which we already know many of the producers of the labels think, just wait how they will be when they are paying your startup costs on projects.

I do think Kickstarter has a place and I believe that to be for the people who really have smaller projects and no other access or avenue to fund their projects. When you see bigger guys asking people for money, examples like Spike Jonze and Zach Braff you know it is being taken advantage of.

It was Spike Lee, and while I'm not 100% on board with him and Zach Braff using Kickstarter the way they did, if there's no interest from studios, I'm OK with filmmakers we've heard of trying to raise money for their art or whatever.

Sorry, Spike Lee. Too many Spikes.

Braff actually said, stupidly, he could have got the film made outside of Kickstarter, but chose not to.

I think I'd be interested in such a venture - in principle. In the real world, film music fans would rather have another "Star Trek: The Motion Picture Ultimate Ultimate Final Edition" with a 9-seconds cue missing from earlier releases, or a "Blade Runner: Alternative alternative to the alternate release of the original album" before they'd be interested in (and willing to pay for) anything truly new and original. Such is the world of film music nerds.

No, its not my responsibility to fund some private businesses endeavors. The risk and rewards should be on the business not the consumer. That's free Enterprise everyone loves to talk about. It comes with risks and there are no guarantees. It's almost blackmail. Help fund my personal product/business ventures or you will never get it. I think Kickstarter is an appalling new trend in corporate/ consumer relations.

Um....I think you're missing the whole point. Crowdfunding is to help get money there that isn't there. A project costs $400K and you only have 300K to even work with, but know others are interested. You're gonna right that it's "Help fund my personal product/business ventures or you will never get it." but it's because there's no money that exists to do it. But in addition, the system is a way for a lot of people to contribute what used to be in the territory of a few. Video games are a great example -- in the old days, unless you wanted to make a PC shareware game, any developer basically required to have a publisher back them. It's the same thing as KS -- money has to come from SOMEWHRE up front. People have to spend money to make a product. If that money doesn't exist, it won't be made.

I'm not sure I like the idea on a regular basis, but on a selective basis, it might be interesting.

I think o na regular basis, a label would become some what dependant on the idea and would start going with the frequent fan requests and easy title and ignore the more obscure stuff; not enough people would have funded a Terry Plumelianything or a new Lee Holdridge documentary score; what about all these obscure TV and film scores which we'd have otherwise never heard and never sampled and thus would not know about and have purchased, that came out thanks to a label taking a chance?

After all, it does come down to money. I recall it was Lukas himself that said something a couple years before FSM announced closure, along the lines that in order to stay stable they needed to put out a couple titles each month. I imagine there's a similar story at each label. So, a label needs cash flow to pay for overhead and epenses on new releases (which can sometime take years before they come out, meaning cash tied that doesn't come back to you for years), so why take chances? Play it safe. Go with the titles everybody wants. Hell, why go with the mroe questionable titles even many score fans want? Just go with what ever seems a sure deal.

And what if, for example, a label decides it's more cost effectice to do a re-recording since the original recording is too long, too old, more time and money to transfer, master, and assemble, etc.? As much as "Ben Hur" is considered a classic, I seriously doubt the film score community would have Kickstartered a 5CD deluxde set.

But meanwhile, the limited edition market continues to flow and not everybody is going to hop onto Kickstarter or some other alternative, so people are going to be tying their money up in releases that could take a year or more to hit the street and other laels that are not using Kickstarter, are still releasing limited editions -- and they take some pretty dough.

What if you start getting people that expect their money does or doesn't pay for crossfades? What if you get people that expect their money does pay for shorter releases or pays for longer? What if you get people who want their money back because it wasn't done how they invisioned? Or other various arguments. Film score fans are basically an assemblage of curmudgeonly complainers, after all.

No, its not my responsibility to fund some private businesses endeavors. The risk and rewards should be on the business not the consumer. That's free Enterprise everyone loves to talk about. It comes with risks and there are no guarantees. It's almost blackmail. Help fund my personal product/business ventures or you will never get it. I think Kickstarter is an appalling new trend in corporate/ consumer relations.

Um....I think you're missing the whole point. Crowdfunding is to help get money there that isn't there. A project costs $400K and you only have 300K to even work with, but know others are interested. You're gonna right that it's "Help fund my personal product/business ventures or you will never get it." but it's because there's no money that exists to do it. But in addition, the system is a way for a lot of people to contribute what used to be in the territory of a few. Video games are a great example -- in the old days, unless you wanted to make a PC shareware game, any developer basically required to have a publisher back them. It's the same thing as KS -- money has to come from SOMEWHRE up front. People have to spend money to make a product. If that money doesn't exist, it won't be made.

That's what bank loans and private investors are for. And I don't mean the consumer. If I donate, do I get stock in the company as well? It's a perverted system where the consumer is required to fund the business. Also people are enticed to donate more than the retail value of the product with fears the product won't otherwise get produced. The lame little gifts or rewards hardly merits such action.

I would definitely be interested in using this for major projects, such as a HAWAII FIVE-O box set or WILD, WILD WEST. As others have said, it would all depend on the project.

But that is really a good thing. How many times have labels misjudged the level of interest in something and had to eat their up-front costs? This Kickstarter (or other) method would give a nice indication of interest right up front. The label would have to be certain to get the word out broadly among the "Soundtrackies", but that's what boards like this are for.

I have not participated and know little about these projects. There should be a breakdown of where the money will go. Since many of the soundtracks discussed here are owned by Universal, Warner, etc, I would certainly not want to have the impression that I borrow money to these companies, for which I have little respect.

No one has mentioned Perseverance tried this with Deadly Friend & Chinatown a few years back. I put in on 'Friend', got the title, but was never sure if it really funded anything, or just added $15 to a $20 cd. Chinatown, the proposed re-recording anyway, didn't happen, so who knows where that money went. Then, the OST just showed up, years later....